XNIRSPEC not responsive

If XNIRSPEC stops updating, as evidenced by exposures suddenly not counting up, unresponsive buttons, or fields not updating to changes, then it may need to be quit and restarted. To quit the GUI, work through these steps:

1. First check that the server is still healthy. Go to any text window with "waimea" in the prompt, and try to show the value of a random keyword, for example enter the command s outdir. If a valid keyword value is returned, the server is fine. Proceed with the steps below. If an error message is returned, follow the steps in Troubleshooting server problems to determine if the server processes are not working properly.
2. Next try to quit XNIRSPEC using the QUIT button in the upper right corner of the top panel. If this works, proceed to restart the GUI as described below.
3. If the QUIT button is not responsive, look on the same monitor for a cmdtool icon that has a pathname like "/usr/local/bin/something" in the title. Open that icon to a window. If the word xnirspec (or Xnirspec or XNIRSPEC) appears anywhere in the messages in that window, then kill the window from the window manager pulldown menu.

If the SCAM takes an image successfully, and the SCAM Quicklook display updates with the image, then the server is fine, and a SPEC exposure in progress when you restarted the GUI will complete to its conclusion, but without any update in the SPEC exposure control panel of the XNIRSPEC GUI. Some patience will be required to wait for the exposure to run its natural course, so don't abort it.

XNIRSPEC crashes in Daytime Mode

Sometimes, during the afternoon or before the user runs "Enable Night-time Mode," XNIRSPEC disappears even though the server remains up and the other GUIs continue working. The usual cause is the death of the DCS Simulator program. If you try to restart XNIRSPEC without the DCS Simulator running, XNIRSPEC will usually disappear again in short order. The DCS Simulator is started automatically by the NIRSPEC startup script, but it sometimes crashes and burns for unknown reasons. You can check whether it is running by by going to any text window on the NIRSPEC host waimea and issuing the following command:

psgrep dcs

There should be an active job called dcsSim running. If not, in the waimea window, issue the commands:

make_dcs_sim    to restart the simulator, and

check_dcs_mode    to verify that you are talking to the DCS simulator.